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Avoiding Dualism in the communication age

I assume we all have friends, family, acquaintances, etc who hold very strong views. Sometimes they can be down right vile, yes?

Most days I can sort of watch them come and go like the tide but other times I find myself being caught up in the moment. Yesterday was particularly rough, especially into the evening. I really appreciated the zazen time hosted by Dosho, I'll tell you that! Much needed.

The first thing to get my emotions stirring was a post by a friend about the passing of Pete Seeger. Now I personally find Pete Seeger to be a very inspirational human being, so I took offense to this persons post. I know that my reaction is my own issue, but still, there it was. When I read the words, "commie scum", and "should have died 60 years sooner", my emotions began stirring. I did a pretty good job of not giving into them though. Here's the real problem...the post was full of downright lies. This is the part I struggle with. When I see things that I know are untrue, especially hateful things, I have a very hard time not arguing.

The second thing to set me off last night....I posted that I was watching the State of the Union. I shared no opinion, no commentary, nothing. Maybe I was a little sarcastic (maybe the wrong word here) the actual post was something like this. "Yes I am watching, he's the President and I'm an American dammit" I sort of intended it to be slightly funny.

What I got in reply was vile. Very vile, and I choose not to repeat it here. I fought with my ego on this one, how do I respond? Do I respond? and so on. In the end I chose to simply request this person keep their opinions on their own page and then I deleted their comments. After thinking about it a little longer, I elected to remove them as a friend.

But now, what to do? Some of these people who hold very different views from mine, truly are friends. I don't want to alienate them by blocking them. that could cost a true friendship. But in some cases I wonder, do I want to be friends with folks who think this way?

I guess I'm looking for advice. How do you all handle these situations if at all? I had been doing very well with it after slowing down by FB time. But it seems to be causing a disturbance in the force again.